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Are You More Blessed Than the Virgin Mary?

“That Hearing and Keeping the Word of God Renders a Person More Blessed Than Any Other Privilege That Ever God Bestowed on Any of the Children of Men,”

Jonathan Edwards writes:

The hearing and keeping the word of God brings the happiness of a spiritual union and communion with God.

‘Tis a greater blessedness to have spiritual communion with God and to have a saving intercourse with him by the instances of his Spirit and by the exercise of true devotion than it is to converse with God externally, to see the visible representation and manifestations of his presence and glory, and to hear his voice with the bodily ears as Moses did. For in this spiritual intercourse the soul is nigh unto and hath more a particular portion than in any external intercourse.

‘Tis more blessed to be spiritually related to Jesus Christ—to be his disciples, his brethren and the members—than to stand in the nearest temporal relation, than to be his brother or his mother.

Jonathan Parnell (@jonathanparnell) is a writer and content strategist at Desiring God, and is the lead planter of Cities Church in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, where he lives with his wife, Melissa, and their four children. He is also the co-author ofHow to Stay Christian in Seminary.